Completing the Underworld with Heroes, a guide for the common adventurer

>> This Guide is generally for Normal Mode, but every build and strategy mentioned in this guide is Hard Mode Proof. No consumables were used while testing >>

A few weeks ago I made this thread - http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/h...t10476981.html with two goals in mind: to get other people motivated in doing the Underworld with heroes and to get information on how to beat Dhuum with heroes and without the use of consumables. Now that I have accomplished this I decided to write this guide for those who are still missing their Underworld Monument and / or want to beat the Underworld with the support of their heroes.

Getting there

The Underworld can be accessed by ascended players when the world has the favor of the gods, by offering 1 platinum to serve Grenth at the Temple of the Ages, Zin Ku Corridor, or the Chantry of Secrets. in order to make the offering, one must kneel at the statue of Grenth. One can also enter the Underworld by using a Scroll of the Underworld at the aforementioned outposts or within Embark Beach. It is irrelevant if the world has the favor or not if you are to use a scroll.

Ascension

Tyria: To ascend on a character one must complete the rituals with Turai Ossa in the Crystal Desert and besting yourself within the Augury Rock.Cantha: Characters who wish to become Closer to the Stars must seek the help of Suun, the Oracle of Mists in the Nahpui Quarter.Nightfall: An elonian adventurer can enter the Underworld after escaping from Kourna and completing the quest “Hunted”.An elonian character can ascend in Tyria, or become Closer to the Stars in Cantha in order to gain entry rights to the Underworld, etc.

General

The Underworld is the realm of the Death God, Grenth, who’s rule is being challenged by the minions of the former God of Death, Dhuum. Dhuum was put to rest by Grenth, but not forever for he gains strength from every death within the Underworld and will soon awake. When it's time, it is the players’ duty to put him back to rest within the Hall of Judgment. Before the player has a chance to attempt this, he or she must complete numerous challenges to gain the favor of Grenth.
If a player successfully completes these challenges and somehow manages to push Dhuum back into hibernating state he can reap the spoils from the Underworld Chest and get a chance at rare miniatures and weaponry.
The quests inside the Underworld revolve around the Monuments of Grenth and NPCs the player must protect.

Monuments of Grenth: Terrorweb Dryders. The demonic elementalists, who also are high ranking members in the army of Dhuum, have trapped the Reapers of the Underworld within the Monuments of Grenth. The Reapers play an important role in the events of the Underworld.Reapers of the Underworld: Every time you fight off the Terrorwebs from a Monument, the Reaper trapped within will be freed and you can complete tasks for them to further advance your cause for Grenth. A Reaper's untimely demise will get you removed from the Underworld so guard them well.King Frozenwind: At the Frozen Wastes, several demons of Dhuum will attempt an assault on the Reaper of the Frozen Wastes and King Frozenwind himself. Should they succeed your story in the Underworld is finished.Souls: In the Labyrinth you are tested with a simple task of escorting new souls to the Village of the Forgotten Vale, failure is not an option.Spirits: Grenth is a just Death God and grants fair trial for those tormented by the fallen God of Death. Forces of Dhuum will try and prevent their escape from a world of pain at the Bone Pits, make sure the spirits survive their wrath.

Micro

Micro Is recommended for heating up burritos and Saarioinen's Ham pizzas.

Consumables

>> experienced players may not need consumables but I still recommend them as they speed the run by up to 60 minutes >>

I strongly suggest you to visit [Consumables] NPCs at Embark Beach and craft various consumables before you venture in to the Underworld. It is the hardest dungeon in the game and completing it with heroes can take up to three hours, and even if you manage to complete the ten quests Dhuum can and will kick you out if you're ill-prepared. There are several sorts of consumables but I'll only refer the three major ones.

Armor of Salvation Grants your party Health Regeneration, Armor and Damage Reduction. And gives partial critical hit immunity. Lasts 30 minutes. You should have at least three of these in your journey inside the Underworld. Save them for Servants of Grenth, The Four Horsemen, Imprisoned Spirits and Dhuum himself.* Requires Rank 3 Delver or higher to craft

Essence of Celerity increases your partys' Attack, Movement, Skill Activation & Recharge speed by 20% for 30 minutes. With these you do not need dual "Fall Back!" on your heroes for The Four Horsemen, and they also increase your partys' damage output by a nice amount.* Requires Rank 3 Bookah or higher to craft

Grail of Might is a good choice as it increases your partys' Maximum Health by 100 and Energy by 10 for 30 minutes. Extra health is counter-productive with Shelter, but overall it's a good gain.* Requires Rank 3 Slayer or higher to craft

On top of these Resurrection Scrolls and Death-penalty removing items such as Four-Leaf Clovers and Elixirs of Valor are nice to have.
As drops clovers can only be acquired once a year during an in-game event but they can be purchased from other players throughout the year. Elixirs of Valor are random reward from Coffer of Whispers. But they can also be purchased from other players.

The map of the Underworld

Building your Heroes

The first runs I did inside the Underworld taught me a lot on the amount of defense you need. I managed to complete all 10 quests in UW with little defense but at the time I had no idea what to expect from Dhuum. Dhuum quickly made me realize I was running a really horrible setup for UW and I had to start from scratch. After a while I learned the most solid way to approach UW and Dhuum is to have two dedicated defensive heroes. A Soul Twisting Ritualist is close to being invaluable; He negates boatloads of damage Vs. Dhuum and helps to protect Reapers, Spirits in escort quests (Pits, Vale) and gives room for error in general play and during the quest “Unwanted Guests”. Obviously the second defensive hero will be on healing duty. I used a Necromancer Ritualist due to Soul Reaping. SR enables the hero to spam 10e spells left and right without running out of juice.

The hero template above (3 AOE; 2-3 Single Target, 2-3 Utility skills) is a viable template in every zone, but especially in the Underworld. And the skills I mentioned before are great choices to equip your heroes with, but with the plethora of skills in Guild Wars I’m sure you can get away with other setups.

Recommended Skills

Guild Wars has hundreds of decent skills we can use to equip our heroes with, and to build viable setups for different challenges. Here I will list a few abilities so you get a good idea of what to bring to the Underworld. These are just examples.

Movement Speed modifiers: Skills such as "Fall Back!" are required to successfully do the Four Horsemen with the strategy explained below. Muddy Terrain also helps a ton; especially under Hard Mode.If you use Essence of Celerity, you do not need two copies of "Fall Back!"Healing Skills that target multiple allies: Skills such as Life, Protective Was Kaolai and Divine Healing are more of a necessity than a luxury as Dhuum's Judgment hits the whole party for a few hundred damage every now and then. Have at least 2 abilities that heal the whole party. I recommend 3.Defensive Rituals and Shouts: Several foes inside the underworld hit for up to 200-300 points of damage on a 60 armor Caster. For this reason I strongly recommend skills such as Displacement, Shelter, Union, "Save Yourselves!", "Never Surrender!" & "Stand Your Ground!". These abilities are key abilities in defeating Dhuum: A Soul Twister makes him really easy. Defensive Spirits also help to protect the important NPCs you encounter in some quests.Offensive Spirits: Signet of Spirits, Bloodsong, and various other spirits from the Communing Line. Especially powerful if combined with Painful Bond and Signet of Ghostly Might. Heroes equipped with these abilities will be the cornerstone of your partys' single-target damage output.Earthbind: Dhuum can't be Knocked Down. That's if you don't have Earthbind. With this spirit you can KD any foe in the game - including Dhuum. Take this and pair it with abilities that cause knockdowns often: Great Dwarf Weapon, Wanderlust.Hex Removal: To get rid of the killer hex 'Weight of Dhuum' in the Dhuum Encounter.

Example Hero Skill Bars

This Hero is a Toolbox as he doesn't have a very specific role: He heals the whole party, resurrects, and packs the snares required for "The Four Horsemen". Snares are not a necessity for Normal Mode.

This hero deals Armor-ignoring AE damage and offers party-wide movement speed buffs. Feast of Corruption requires a hex (any hex) to deal the maximum amount of damage. Consider bringing abilities such as Painful Bond and Lamentation on the Signet of Spirits Ritualist and Suffering on the Necromancer. He also helps the other heroes maintain Energy. Consider equipping him with Mark of Pain if you are playing a melee.Two copies of "Fall Back!" is required for "The Four Horsemen".

This hero is a gem especially for a melee user, but also for basically anyone. He offers great single-target damage and has great synergy with a Signet of Ghostly Might spirit ritualist. This hero helps countering party-wide pressure and buffs the melee user with Splinter Weapon.If you are a caster, change Splinter Weapon & Ancestors' Rage for abilities such as Lamentation.

The Soul Twister. He negates the majority of damage thrown at any allies at his or her range. Especially valuable in the quests "Imprisoned Spirits" & "The Nightman Cometh". Only bring Earthbind if you are planning to knocklock Dhuum. If you are, have it disabled for everything else but Dhuum.If you manually use the spirits on this hero always apply Shelter before Union. At 600 health Shelter reduces all damage taken to 60, and if Union is applied on top of Shelter it reduces that 60 damage to 45. Union has no effect on damage packets larger than 10% of your health if it is applied before Shelter.

Equipping your Heroes

While not required, it is a great perk to have proper runes and insignia added to your heroes' armour. I personally prefer +armor insignia, superior runes linked to elite skill on damage dealers and minor in other used attributes. Vitae runes go in to the empty slots. Weaponry makes a small difference, too. If you're not short on Platinum I suggest you head to either Vasburg Armory, or the Leviathan Pits and craft your heroes wands and focus items. These artisans craft 20/20 weapons and focii for 5 plats and common materials.

Quests

Each quest inside the Underworld spawns monsters, and often NPCs you must defend. It is important you are aware of what each quest is about before accepting them.
(listed in the order of completion (hardest -> easiest)

Upon accepting this quest three groups of grasping darkness’ will spawn in the Labyrinth and once they are defeated the way to other parts of the Underworld will open. My advice is to pre-clear the Aatxe and Skeletons before accepting this quest. Make sure to accept the quest "Restoring Grenth's Monuments" after turning this quest in!

Restoring Grenth’s Monuments @Reaper of the Labyrinth
This quest spans across the whole Underworld and when accepted, it will spawn 3 Terrorwebs on each of Grenth's Monuments. This quest should be accepted once you reach the Reaper of the Labyrinth, without it you cannot free the other reapers by the various monuments. RGM automatically completes while you’re pursuing other quests within the Underworld.

Note: This tactic is for Hard Mode setting and is not required for Normal Mode - if you attempt this on normal mode you do not need Muddy Terrain or Barbed Trap.

Possibly the hardest quest in Guild Wars at the time of writing this guide. Study these tactics carefully before attempting the quest. It's very hard and unforgiving even on Normal Mode.
This quest is about defending the Reaper against a horde of Dhuum's Riders and their minions. Once you accept the quest, initially four groups will spawn, two on each side. These groups consist of a Rider of Dhuum & two golden terrorwebs. After time has passed Silver Terrorwebs and Skeletons of Dhuum will appear and make their way to the Reaper. It's very difficult to take them head-on by the monument so what we're going to do is to utilize Movement speed altering spells and abilities to eliminate two Rider groups while preventing the other groups from getting to the Reaper at the intended speed.
When you accept the quest the aforementioned groups will start moving towards the monument, two groups from each side. Read the steps below, observe the timeline to get a good glimpse of what should be happening and when and view the YouTube videos.

Step by step walkthrough:
1. View the videos and the map I've created for this strategy
2. Disable Hero Skills: Bloodsong, Pain, Barbed Trap, "Fall Back!", Muddy Terrain, Preservation.
3. Flag your heroes to Snare spots indicated by the map, lay down Bloodsong, Barbed trap. Spirit of Pain (Preservation - and any other spirit with a long duration)
4. Flag your Muddy Terrain Hero to MT Spot indicated in the map, cast Muddy Terrain and get ready to accept the quest.
5. Flag your heroes ahead of the reaper so they're all out of MT's reach.
6. Take the quest, activate fall back and run to Clash Point #1 indicated in the map.
7. Focus both Horse Riders down and dodge meteor showers.
8. When the Eastern Horsemen are dead, run back past the Reaper to Clash Point #2.
9. Use your judgment whether to deal with the Spiders or Riders first
10. Anticipate Silver Webs & Skeletons of Dhuum as they should be arriving at the monument shortly
11. Accept Quest reward.

The Four Horsemen is about execution, this quest is about preparation. In this quest four Spirits will spawn near the Bone Pit and 4 groups of Dhuum's lackeys will try to eliminate them. The objective is to successfully escort all four of them to the Reaper.
If you accept the quest without any preparations the spirits will be killed before you have a chance to protect them, so it's a must to have your heroes waiting for the incoming Foespawns below.
As shown in the screenshots, we have 1 monster spawn in the northern corridor. Three foes will spawn from the northern spawn. Much like the Shining Blade War Horn, these can be any combination of Silver Terrorweb, Golden Terrorweb & Skeleton of Dhuum - Once I had three skeletons spawn. Needless to say what three bone spikes do to a Spirit.
Down south we have three spawns total, each of them spawns three monsters. Initially - when you accept the quest - the spawn up north & one spawn down south will activate, that's six foes trying to kill the spirits. If you flag heroes as shown in the second screenshot the southern foes should be eliminated quite fast before the second southern spawn activates. At this time the northern foes have made it past the spirits you left in their way and it's time to un-flag your heroes and quickly run to them (Clash Point) before they engage the spirits. When they are killed finish up with the southern foes and sit around waiting for the final group. After that you need to make sure the spirits get to the Reaper - The rendbots will keep them from reaching the Reaper.

Step-by-step

1. View the two screenshots and the YouTube video to get a good overview of the quest and preparation rites.
2. You may want to put your heroes on aggressive for this quest
3. Flag your heroes up north and lay down any spirits with duration above 1 minute
4. Now the timer is running on the spirits so quickly flag your heroes as shown in the second screenshot and accept the quest
5. If it's on Hard Mode quickly make it South and finish off any foes before heading South to Clash Point. If it's on Normal Mode and you're a primary damage dealer, flag the healer to Clash Point range and go straight North to finish the three foes off.
6. after the Northern front is eliminated move back South and wait for the final spawn
7. Babysit Spirits
8. Accept quest reward

In this quest you are required to defend the Ice King. There will be several spawns of Terrorweb Dryders (gold & silver) and Skeletons of Dhuum. The spawnpoints are in the open area below the Reaper’s plateau. This quest is mostly about the preparation, too. I recommend watching the YouTube video to learn the spawnpoints and where I flagged my heroes, learning from the video is better than through trial and error.
The monsters spawn down there and they move towards the Ice King and the Reaper. Do make sure you cover all the spawn areas so the foes will not sneak past you and get you kicked out of the zone.

Wrathful Spirits @Reaper of the Forgotten Vale

A bunch of illusionary weaponry mesmers will spawn at several locations in the village. The objective is to destroy these angry spirits. Just make sure you complete this quest before Escort of Souls, or else they may kill the new Souls and thus remove you from the Underworld.

This is one of those quests where it is recommended to know what to do before accepting this quest. The objective is to defeat six Keepers of Souls. They will spawn at fixed locations around the Labyrinth and each Keeper is protected by two packs of Immortal Vengeful Aatxe and two groups of Golden Terrorweb Spiders. One of each group on each side. They have a patrol pattern which you should observe before going for the Keeper itself. Before trying to complete this particular quest I recommend you to complete ‘Wrathful Spirits’ and ‘The Four Horsemen’ to gain access to Teleport to Forgotten Vale & Chaos Planes. The ability to teleport behind the Keepers makes this quest slightly easier to complete.

At this point I suggest you take a look at the highly detailed map & the video linked above.

The Vengeful Aatxe are indeed immortal and cannot be harmed. Plus they hit like trucks on Hard Mode. Avoid them. Before you accept the quest make sure your heroes are behind the Reaper so they won’t accidentally agro the Aatxe as they spawn instantly. Keeper #1: Teleport to Forgotten Vale and make your way back to the Labyrinth. Here you will find the first Soul Keeper. He is an easy target as the foes guarding him will patrol away if you’re patient. Although if you’re confident of your own abilities it is possible to go in and gank the Keeper, as the Aatxe & Web patrols will die with the Keeper. You be the judge of your abilities and decide which approach is better for you.
Now that the first Keeper is dead I suggest you wait near the stairs @The Reaper of the Labyrinth and pull the Terrorweb patrol of the 6. Keeper away and kill it as it can wander too close to the Reaper and kill him while you’re doing something else.Keeper #2: It is time to Teleport to Chaos Planes. Make your way to the border of the Labyrinth and Twin Serpent Mountains, here you will see the second Keeper. He sits by the bridge with 3 Skeletons guarding him. I suggest you pull all the terrorwebs to the area in the mountains before going for the Keeper himself. Wait for Aatxe to patrol away and quickly kill the Skeletons & The Keeper. Skeletons will not die with their Keeper. Keeper #3: The third Keeper sits at the starting location. Use the Twin Serpent Mountains’ entrance to the inner Labyrinth and pay attention to patrols. After clearing the Terrorwebs you can safely pull the Keeper out of the pit and kill him. Keepers #4 and #6 are close to you but if you’re not experienced with this guest I suggest you run back to the bridge where you nailed Keeper #2.Keeper #4: At the bridge you can see how the Aatxe patrols. When they move to the inner Labyrinth pull the Terrorwebs away and kill them. Go back and wait by the bridge for the Aatxe to patrol away to the Ice Wastes entrance. This is the window you can safely go to the Keeper #4, finish off with any skeletons as they do not die with their keeper. Keeper #5: He sits in the ‘high room’ above the stairs to the right. The Terrorwebs are slightly easier to pull away than with the other Keepers. The Keeper #5 is slightly harder to pull away from his throne so I recommend you to wait for a good opening in the Cow patrols and pull him just so you won’t agro any skeletons while going for the kill.Keeper #6:The sixth and the final Keeper. What can I say? Pull the Terrorwebs away from the corridor at the stairs, again, wait for cow patrols to leave you a solid opening and finish him off. There, quest completed.

This quest is fairly easy. the objective is to escort a bunch of NPCs from the Labyrinth to the Forgotten Vale. Once you accept this quest the spirits will spawn near the Monument and slowly move towards Vale on their own. Three packs of Mindblades will spawn once you accept this quest but you should be able to finish them off before the spirits get to their range. It’s adviced you flag your heroes & place down spirits at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the Forgotten Vale before accepting this quest. Once you have killed the Mindblade Spawns you can safely run off and do other quests, the quest will complete once the spirits get to the Mayor.

Terrorweb Queen & a bunch of Obsidian Guardians, Skeletons & Terrorwebs will spawn once you accept this quest, Along with three Charged Blackness popups. There’s nothing that can kick you out other than your group dying, play it safe and kill the Queen.

Freeing the the Reaper is harder than the quest itself. Once you accept the quest a Demon Assassin “Slayer” and 2 groups of Terrorwebs and Keepers of Souls will spawn down the mountain and it tries to gank the reaper. After you accept the quest move downward and wait for him by the foot of the mountain. Once he is defeated quickly move up, accept the quest reward and teleport away. Reaper will be invulnerable after Slayer’s demise so feel free to teleport away as soon as possible.

Objective is to get Dhuum down to 20% and fill the Dhuum’s Rest bar. See videos for a walkthrough.

Dhuum himself has an absurd amount of hit points, roughly around 80,000 (no joke). The fight can take up to 20 minutes with a hero group, so be prepared for it.
What makes Dhuum interesting is that resurrection is disabled due to Curse of Dhuum, and characters who die can join the fight as spirits by talking to the Mayor of the Forgotten Vale. Heroes join as spirits automatically.
While in a spirit form you have access to five unique skills to help you battle Dhuum and his Touch ability:

#3 skill - Encase Skeletal - Disables target skeleton for 20 seconds.
Cost: 1 energy | Cast: 3/4ths of a second | Cooldown: None
Heroes will keep using this skill on the adds summoned by Dhuum. Since it has no cooldown heroes will freeze every single skeleton that has been summoned and suddenly 37 of them breaks free at the same time. You want to have this skill disabled as soon as possible when a hero dies.

#4 skill - Reversal of Death - Removes 5% Death Penalty from Target Other Ally.
Cost: 1 energy | Cast: 1/4th of a second | Cooldown: 7 seconds
outside consumables this and Asuran Scan are the only means to battle Death Penalty applied by Dhuum. Heroes are poor at using this skill so I recomend manual use on heroes with high Death Penalty. This skill adds 5% morale to characters with no Death Penalty.

Judgment of Dhuum - inflicts 75 fire damage per second to foes within spirit range, lasts 4 seconds.
Cast: 1 second | Cooldown: 45 seconds
Dhuum follows a fairly predictable pattern as he doesn't have too many skills. When you start the encounter he usually starts with Judgment. After Judgment he summons skeletons and roughly 30 seconds later he will perform the Reaping of Dhuum and give you enough time to regain mana and deal with any skeletons.How to deal with Judgment: You can use various skills to protect your group versus Judgment, skills such as Mantra of Flame, Shelter, "Save Yourselves!" and "Stand Your Ground!". It is possible to interrupt Judgment and increase the cast time of it with spells such as Arcane Conundrum and Shared Burden to make it easier to interrupt. Armor of Salvation negates a huge chunk of Judgment's damage. Pain Inverter is very powerful against Judgment.

Reaping of Dhuum - Dhuum becomes invulnerable and attacks four targets. Each attack deals 200 weapon damage.
Cast: 1 second | Cooldown: 45 seconds
If Dhuum didn't have this skill the fight would be much harder. When Dhuum performs Reaping he disappears under the ground and pops up after a few seconds under a random party member and strikes him for 200 points of damage. The location is indicated by a green circle. The Reaping takes up to 15 seconds to perform, during which he only attacks four times. This is a good window to regain health, energy & to take care of any remaining undead summons.

Touch of Dhuum - Steals 100 life, adds 15% Death Penalty and kills characters at 60% Death Penalty
Cast: 1/4th of a second | Cooldown: 20 seconds
Unless you are knocklocking Dhuum this skill can become an issue. I recommend packing DP removers to avoid the hassle with Reversal of Death.Dealing with Dhuum's Touch: Death Penalty Removers. Reversal of Death. Gain access to RoD by sacrificing a hero at the start of the encounter.Going by game mechanics, this is classified as a skill, therefore "Can't Touch This!" has no effect on it.

Weight of Dhuum - Attack that applies a hex: Target moves and attacks 90% slower, receives 75% less healing and has 10 pips of health regen. Hex duration: 5 seconds
Cast: 3/4ths of a second | Cooldown: 15 seconds
I strongly recommend you to have at least one copy of hex removal just to get rid of this nasty hex.

And on top of all that he keeps summoning Champions and Minions throughout the encounter. They are undead and suffer extra damage from Holy Spear and, Banish & Spiritual Pain. I recommend you to have priority on summoned creatures as they can overwhelm you if you ignore them for too long.

Notes:
If you resurrect a dead party member with resurrection scrolls he will join the fight as a Ghost. Props to Jeydra for letting me know about this.
In the Prep vid. I had no idea what to do, this explains the long duration of the video.
I changed every skill I deemed useless vs. Dhuum to slots #3 and #5 and disabled them in case the hero dies, that way he won't be using Encase Skeleton.
You cannot activate resurrection skills Versus Dhuum, but Resurrection scrolls work just fine.
When member of your party dies he will turn into a Ghost. The Ghost has five skills of which Skill #1 fills the rest bar, and #5 damages a target. Using one of these skills triggers a 10-second cooldown on the other one so you can only use one of them effectively. I recommend disabling the damage skill until Rest bar is full. Skill #3 disables an add summoned by Dhuum for 20 seconds. If it’s enabled the hero will keep spamming it and suddenly you have 47 adds frozen, waiting for the 20-second timer to run off. It’s better to keep this skill disabled. Skill #2 heals the target for large amount and skill #4 removes DP and adds morale, the heroes are not good at using this skill, though
It’s better to pursue the adds than Dhuum himself, keeping the summoned foes under control is important.
Keep checking on Dhuum if he’s casting Judgment, if he is – hit SY and PI
Have one eye on the forced Ghost. Keep using Rest and Reversal of Death on people under 10% morale
It’s a good idea to pay attention to the ST ritualist, if Displacement is down I recommend you to cast it manually.
Dhuum fight follows a simple pattern: He attacks you, uses Judgment and summons adds. Then he goes under the ground and starts attacking people, during this time your heroes can not attack him and it’s good to regain any lost energy and health. After four teleport-like attacks he pops up in the middle of the room and starts his attacking pattern again.
Focus is key in this tedious fight.

To Do -List:
Update strategies & clarify several phrases
Maps
Builds
General information

If you haven’t got any experience in the underworld I recommend you start under Normal Mode setting as certain quests under HM are unforgiving. And as per usual, I will offer my expertise to anyone who needs it. This basically means that if you are struggling with any portions of the Underworld, post here or whisper me in-game and I'm more than happy to help, be it an issue with builds or a specific quest.

Credits to the following people in no specific order:Myself, of course.Jeydra, for providing ideas and bouncing thoughts. Also for maintaining competition, even though it wasn't a race.Life Bringing, for providing insight on how SC groups do UW.HigherMinion, for noting that the ghost skills in Dhuum encounter are indeed spells and therefore affected by the global HSR from stavesChthon, for offering a run through UW with real people and giving out information of the Dhuum encounter.Xenomortis, for informing me about Reaper Immunity after quest completion

21/5/11
* Updated and clarified some parts of the guide.
* Updated Hero Builds- section.
* Updated strategies for The Four Horsemen.
* Updated the map of the Underworld; area colours are now less distinct & Hall of Judgment is pointed out in the map

date n/a
* Updated -Consumables section in the guide with pictures and relative information
* Updated -Micro section in the guide to be a bit more appropriate
* Updated and clarified strategies in the following quests: The Four Horsemen, Imprisoned Spirits, Unwanted Guests
* Updated and clarified information of the Dhuum encounter
* Added YouTube video links for Dhuum. They cover up the encounter & preparations for it
* Updated Ghost mechanic of the Dhuum encounter

Text to me, images to ArenaNet/NCSoft. Don't copy the text from this guide without my permission.

With Unwanted Guests I suggest taking out the middle Keeper spawn before teleporting to Vale, because in my experience that's the spawn that can aggro onto Labyrinth Reaper. I had one run where the Aatxe hit the Reaper while I was running back from Vale, which caused a fail.

You sure had a lot of trouble with SoG @_@ When I did it, Terrorwebs died so fast I often had time of just standing there, waiting for the next spawn. Still the only difference I can see between what we did is that I stood further to the left (when looking at the battlefield from the Reaper). That removes the possibility that any monsters break off and head for Reaper, though I had one run where a Terrorweb broke off and headed for King Frozenwind.

Might want to take out Glyph of Swiftness from the ESurge Mesmer ... might also be more prudent to sacrifice the ESurge + MT Mesmer vs. Dhuum, because SYG is very helpful if Shelter is down.

If you're a caster you'll probably have a LOT more difficulty because no SY to protect vs. Dhuum @_@ I haven't tried any solutions other than knocklock, however.

With Unwanted Guests I suggest taking out the middle Keeper spawn before teleporting to Vale, because in my experience that's the spawn that can aggro onto Labyrinth Reaper. I had one run where the Aatxe hit the Reaper while I was running back from Vale, which caused a fail.

You sure had a lot of trouble with SoG @_@ When I did it, Terrorwebs died so fast I often had time of just standing there, waiting for the next spawn. Still the only difference I can see between what we did is that I stood further to the left (when looking at the battlefield from the Reaper). That removes the possibility that any monsters break off and head for Reaper, though I had one run where a Terrorweb broke off and headed for King Frozenwind.

Might want to take out Glyph of Swiftness from the ESurge Mesmer ... might also be more prudent to sacrifice the ESurge + MT Mesmer vs. Dhuum, because SYG is very helpful if Shelter is down.

If you're a caster you'll probably have a LOT more difficulty because no SY to protect vs. Dhuum @_@ I haven't tried any solutions other than knocklock, however.

Again, nice guide.

@SoG - It's often much smoother than in this specific video, I just wanted all the clips to be from the same run, but yeah. Ironically I have the most issues with this specific quest. 4HM and Pits are such a routine.
@UWG - It's a good idea to tackle the middle keeper indeed. Although from what I've observed the aatxe have very strict patrol routes with little wandering whereas the terrorwebs are prone to patrolling back and forth.
@Glyph of Swiftness - yes indeed, the build was merely an experiment. I will update it at a later time. And, of course, sacrificing the MT is the logical approach, but with SY and ST I decided that the one that is easiest to sacrifice will have to do, in this case it was the BR hero.

I will add additional ways to deal with certain quests within the weekend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacuna

Sick article! Deserves a sticky imo.

Have any suggestions for a monk player bar? Healing heroes is a bit boring. Smiting is boring too :P is it possible to just slap 100b on and play as a warrior?

Cheers o/

I haven't got much experience playing a monk, but it is possible to play as melee when you are a caster but I'll explore other possibilities as a monk primary when I get the chance.

Thanks for this, was just the thing I was looking for. I will test it out myself with a different mainspec to warrior or try with 100b and get back to you with what I found. One thing though, any chance you could leave ingame sounds or put some random music in you're videos? I think it would make it better to watch

I did 7h uw with my ele on normal mode because I had never beaten this "new" uw. The build is Jeydra's (full credit to him) and is located on the last page of the other uw topic, which is linked in the OP. In short the build is sort of a spike consisting of AP ele, 2 rangers, 1 para, e-surge mes, and 3 ritualists, one soul twisting protter, sos rit and a wanderlust n/rt with couple of other spirits.

My pointers what I learned from my runs before finally being succesful.

Always start with 4-horsemen. If you manage to pull it through and keep it cool in the following quests, uw is done pretty much 90%.

Unwanted Guests: Microing displacement and shelter is key here since combined with fall back it allows you to run past the vengeful aatxes (at least in NM), you don't even have to use reaper to tele behind the keepers. Without displacement and shelter lots of shit can happen with aatxes and the aoe-damage going on. Thankfully the aataxes like to aggro on spirits which eases it a lot.

Servants of Grenth: Actually I found this quest always one of the easiest, just flag your heroes where the spawns, apart from each other of course. Pre-cast spirits before taking quests and see things go down very fast. Make sure you aggro everyone and no-one gets to the ice-ele guy.

Imprisoned Spirits: Watch the battlefield, watch where the spirits are, watch to whom do they aggro and call these targets fast.

Reaper of the twin serpent mountains: Micro shelter and displacement up. Before all the dryders are dead make sure someone goes in there and blows up all the traps, otherwise the reaper may die in seconds after spawning.

Dhuum:This is where Jeydra's build really shines. The great dwarf weapon, when continously cast on 2 rangers and the para renders dhuum quite useless. Should he get occassional judgement of dhuum through, you have the "you move like a dwarf" which allows your party 3 seconds of time to recover. His summons are quite squishy and die fast, remember to prioritize them over dhuum. For added protection you might want to micro displacement, shelter and stand your ground, although dhuum really doesn't get much damage in. Remember to have the earthbind on all the time.

Razah: OACjEyiM5MXzyJGraO5GmMzxJA
Xandra: OACiAyk8gNdmhTr33czl5InA
Livia: OAhjYYgc4OnzzG5U4NMHnTuoNA <-- this is one of those bars that, if you have mercenaries, you can probably run better. Just switch to Rit primary, put in some energy management and switch out Spirit Transfer for Mend Body And Soul / Soothing Memories / some kind of heal.
Jin: OggkYZXbGHKDvG2kcPlPmWJtxxA
Margrid: OggkYZXbGHKDvG2kcPlYnHDtxxA
Hayda: OQOk8Mlr5iiU7mCWo4OWNmP2FGUD <-- Reverse Hex is not necessary, so feel free to run something else, e.g. "Go For The Eyes!"
Gwen: I don't have a template available, but the skills are Energy Surge, Unnatural Signet, Mistrust, Leech Signet, Power Drain, Cry of Frustration, Shatter Hex and Spiritual Pain, at 16 Domination + 11 Inspiration + 9 Fast Casting.

I wrote this guide assuming the players have the basic knowledge of the Underworld and do not have access to Mercenary heroes

this is correct. Many ppl never or rarely full cleared played elite zone simply cause time constraints that implies difficulties to group ... now with the 7H update everyone can do them... doing a 2hours pause in the middle if needed... the video tutorial are good way to learn and discover all the traps.

when you have time, can you do the same for all others elite zones
uw - fow - sorrow - tomb - deep - urgoz - doa - slaver
melee & caster version, non conset, why not
:
- full video run (to see average time requirement) - add some good songs
^^
- melee player & caster player perspective
- high micro or no micro perspective etc.

Anyway; Gz again. While some ppl here are just trolling, You are doing & sharing great work.

@Mugen - I have material ready for a DOA guide, but I believe that will be the last Elite Zone guide I am going to create. Video of the full run would be extremely nice, but the files are often really huge, and obviously the videos will be very long, too. YouTube has a 15-minute rule IIRC, so I will only upload quests and challenges that can be fit in a 15 min clip. I won't add any music to my videos as I find it mildly annoying to find out a otherwise decent YT clip has this horrible music attached to it. I will consider enabling in-game sounds, though.

@Mugen - I have material ready for a DOA guide, but I believe that will be the last Elite Zone guide I am going to create. Video of the full run would be extremely nice, but the files are often really huge, and obviously the videos will be very long, too. YouTube has a 15-minute rule IIRC, so I will only upload quests and challenges that can be fit in a 15 min clip. I won't add any music to my videos as I find it mildly annoying to find out a otherwise decent YT clip has this horrible music attached to it. I will consider enabling in-game sounds, though.

Well, you could just do one for the Fury and the City of Torc'qua (I can't deal with the environmental effect with H&H in Hard Mode, unless the plan is to pull every single pack to the entrance or if I go Shadowform). The Stygian Veil and Ravenheart Gloom are no big deal (except the pulling the Earth Tormentors after the Darkness bit).

I gave this a go on NM today. I took my time and tried to make no mistakes so I was in UW for about 4 hours total, but it was worth it

As you can see I pretty much did a copy&paste of Jeydra's build, but was constrained to monk spells to fill some slots. PS and SoA worked fine since I made the odd mistake and had to protect reapers etc. Judges Insight certainly rocks a lot of stuff down there too!

I found the hardest quest to be Unwanted Guests, but I had no idea about the locations of the Keepers or the Aatxe patrols, so there was some guesswork involed (perhaps there's some scope for a map there EFGJack).

Dhuum was pretty easy. Keep Shelter up and lock the pets with GDW on to him. Micro RoD, kill minions/champions and he dies eventually.

Thanks once again for the guide EFGJack, I may try on HM at some point!

Honestly I think you're overdoing the tactics and build specialization. A standard build such as RoJ Heroway on GWPVX or even then 7 hero player support is easily capable of completing UW NM as long as you utilize the spirit spamming tactic on horsemen. No need for muddy terrain either